Something From the Past

This week we went to Waco to see my parents for a couple of days.  We had a great time and I was finally able to get all of my old files, tucked away in storage.  Rummaging through one of the files I came across a quote I had once read from Abraham Lincoln.  Enjoy and ponder the significance of his words:

"It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, who owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by a history that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.  The awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people.  Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become to self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.  We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has grown, but we have forgotten God."

Abraham Lincoln, April 30, 1863 - on a day he designated as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer.

Navigating Well in These Times

Society has shifted and sadly, in turn, so has the church.  The growing influence of secularism is taking such a toll upon our nation and barring any revival, it is going to get worse.  In some ways, we have gotten to this place because Christian leaders have not navigated the changing landscape well.  Evidence of navigating this landscape well is not found in how big one grows a church or ministry, but rather in how well we grow disciples who authentically walk with God.  The crisis we face now is whether or not we will lead in such a way that keeps people grounded firmly in the truth, regardless of the shifting of our society.  How does one do this?  Here is what Paul said to  Timothy:

¹In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: ²Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. ³For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. ⁴They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. ⁵But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

Could the reality of so many walking away from the faith and not persevering stem from our failure to preach the Word in every season?  Since we live in a day where people want to be told what they want to hear, we must "keep our head in all situations, endure hardship, and do whatever it takes to fulfill our ministry".  This is no easy task today, especially when people do not want sound doctrine.  Doctrine means embracing truth and postmodernism says there is no real truth but our own.  Since Jesus is the truth, it is he who must remain the center of all we do.  We must embrace our calling to do all of our duties of our ministry.

Security in the Aloneness of Preaching the Word

I have been spending time reading through the letters from Paul to Timothy.  There are no better books for pastors than the  Timothy letters.  For me, Pastoring again has led to want to make sure that I am fulfilling the Biblical mandate of the calling. There have been times after I have preached or during a sermon where I felt alone in my embracing and communication of truth.  There is an aloneness in preaching that can come when you point out the faulty thinking and practices of American evangelicalism or the sin nature that we can all embrace. Not many understand the enormity of calling the church to be only biblical in its functions and in these days I am feeling the weight of my call.  It wakes me up in the middle of the night to pray, forces me to my knees, and moves me to seek Him more in more in the Holy Writ.  Here is what Paul said to  Timothy in the 2nd Letter:

"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.  For the time is coming when people will not  endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.  As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry." 2 Timothy 4:1-5.

The most important thing for me in my calling is to preach the word, when it is popular and when it is not.  It is what will chart the right course for the church.  This is no easy thing, but I would not want any other calling.  In a day where church can be about giving people what they want to hear, I am determined more than ever to proclaim Christ as central to everything and fulfill my ministry.

I have found a security in the presence of God and  Christ Jesus when I am fulfilling my calling to speak the truth people may or may not want to hear.  There is a security in the aloneness of preaching the word when the desire is to say what God wants said regardless of what itching ears long for.  It is the sober-minded who can navigate a body of believers to embrace fully the whole counsel of God and stay away from myths. That is my prayer for my life.   

Preaching Advice

I think we need a new generation of preachers who are not only open to new light that God may shed upon his word, but are also suspicious of their own love of novelty and are eager to test all their interpretations of the Bible by the wisdom of the centuries. - John Piper

Keeping the Gospel Central

Being in Baptist circles I have heard many sermons about Acts 6 and the reason we have deacons.  Not only have I heard countless sermons, but I have had many conversations about the role of deacons in the church.  Please keep reading as my point today is not Deacons. Currently I have been teaching at our church through the major themes from Acts.  This past week we came to Acts 6.  My studying led me to an interesting conclusion, the main focus of Acts 6 is not the establishment of deacons, but there is something deeper happening in the church.

The church is growing and there comes to be a real issue between the Hellenist and Hebrew parts of the church.  The issue was real and needed attention and this issue alone led to the establishment of the role of deacon.  The apostles did not get to a place where they needed an advisory board, etc.   The original deacons were chosen to wait on tables, to be servants, not decision makers.  This ministry and role in the church was instituted to be a servant role, to take care of a portion of the body.  We have drifted from the original intention.

The deeper reason behind the decision to have deacons was for this reason:

"It is not right for us to give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables."  The apostles are not downplaying servanthood, but rather making sure that the teaching and proclamation of the Word of God continues to get the highest nod in the church.  This whole decision to start deacons was so that those who taught and led the church would have the time to prepare and teach the Word to the body of Christ.

The proclamation of the Gospel, keeping it central to body life was why the apostles met and decided the best thing to do was to get men of good reputation, wisdom, and full of the Holy Spirit to be servants, who oversaw the distribution of food to the widows.  

  The church must make every decision it does based on that biblical foundation.    Keep the gospel of Jesus Christ central to everything.  That is the point of Acts 6.  As a result of this decision, Acts 6:7 says, "And the Word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem."

The foremost decision in every church is to make sure those who teach the Word of God do not have things that hinder them in this ministry.  Both ministries were important, but one is central to everything the church does and that is to be guided by the Word.  When feeding widows or any other ministry becomes more important and takes away from the proclamation of the gospel, then the church has moved away from being a gospel centered church.  All of those things are important, but they must flow out of the foundation of proclaiming the story of Christ. 

  

Who Gets to Narrate the World

I do not ever do this, but I want to recommend a book to you.  In a day where there are in my opinion to many Christian Books that espouse ministry philosophies, Emergent Church, and books with Christian Labels that are really no more that "self-help", etc., etc., I have an exception to the vast array of books that don't challenge and call us to live with passion. 

If you are in ministry in what is known as the West, mainly, I am writing to those in Europe and the US, you need to go out today and buy a book entitled, "Who Gets To Narrate the World?" by Robert Webber.  It is 137 pages of truth about where we are in the West and what is needed.  

I read a lot and I have not read anything more significant for those in ministry in the West than this book in a long long time.

If you are not in full-time ministry, get this book and call your church, Life Group, family, Sunday School class to be the ones who engage culture with the gospel. 

Get this book and get it today. 

The End of Days

For several days now, I have had this "something" inside me that I could not quite figure out what it was.  It was finally this morning that I understood the "something".  In our day of focusing on daily survival, self-gratification, and life in the now, we, or I should say, me, have lost sight of the bigger picture of our world.  As a kid and a teenager it was so cool to talk about the book of Revelation and the end times.  Though I have throughout the years thought about the end times as I looked at the world, it has been in the last several days that "something" in me has started to grow and it is related to the end times.  For the first time in a long time, I have asked myself this question, Could we be living in the End of Days?  Could the culmination of God's plan for the world be unfolding in our lifetime?  I know that it would be so great to live in a world where everything is peaceful and without worry or stress, but we need to get real and be reminded that is not how all of this ends up.  It ends in war, with God and His people winning.  We live in a war zone regardless of geography because there is a heavenly war that rages daily.  Let's get real about this.  

In case you did not notice something last week, Iran successfully sent a rocket in space with a telecommunication satellite.  The same Iran who has threatened to wipe Israel off the planet and is building nuclear capabilities.  Think through the possible implications  

I know that every generation has asked this question, and to be frank, every generation should.  The reality is though, the past is the past and the future is not here yet, and the End of Days will happen in some generation.  Since we are the only ones alive in the unfolding of God's Story, it could very well happen in our days.  Why not at least think about its potential reality and live with an awareness that makes us ready if it comes?

Friends, we live in a time that has never had so much uncertainty in the world, and we as believers should of all people be in tune with the current conditions globally.  So, I have gone back to the words of Jesus, who gave us perspective for "end of days".  Here are his thoughts in Matthew 24:36-44.

  36"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.41Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.42"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

Jesus said to be ready for his coming.  Are we?